


Just A Regular Vampire Dude

by kethni



Category: Vamp U (2011)
Genre: Casual Sex, Denying the call to action, M/M, Sequel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-09
Updated: 2021-03-09
Packaged: 2021-03-16 07:48:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,152
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29946771
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kethni/pseuds/kethni
Summary: There were times, when Arthur thought that physics were unnecessarily focussed on making his life more difficult.
Relationships: Arthur Levine/OFC, Arthur Levine/OMC





	Just A Regular Vampire Dude

If he was pressed, or asked nicely by someone very attractive, Arthur would admit that _maybe_ he had some faults. They weren’t the worst kind of faults. They were mostly harmless little things like, oh, a rather lax grasp on things like monogamy or not sleeping with his students. Arthur never deliberately set out to cheat because he never meant to cause anyone any pain. If asked, Arthur would say that his sins were mostly sins of omission. Sins of forgetfulness or oh just… getting carried away with things. He hadn’t an ounce of malice in him. Even the partners who might have understandable complaints about various little… peccadillos, would firmly insist that he had never treated them with nastiness, and he would _never_ raise his hand to a woman.

Or a man, to be honest. Arthur just wasn’t comfortable with the whole concept of physical violence. But that wasn’t the point. Striking a woman was utterly beyond the pale. Well, yes, Wayne and those strange students who hung around him, had killed quite a lot of female vampires, but they had been actively trying to kill people. While the whole event made Arthur feel rather… icky, he could _somewhat_ justify it.

He didn’t think there was much in the way of justification for Katie Crocker’s black eye. She had covered it up with makeup and it didn’t seem like anyone around them had noticed. Before Arthur had made his grand transition he probably wouldn’t have noticed. But now he could see the bruise and smell the blood under her skin that was forming it. There must have been a tiny, invisible to the eye, break in the skin that was releasing the scent of stale blood.

Arthur asked Katie to come see him after the class was over and he was disappointed, but not surprised, to see that a hulking hominid skulked along with her.

‘Please wait outside,’ Arthur said to her boyfriend. Billy? Bobby?

‘She doesn’t spend time alone with other men,’ the boyfriend said.

‘It’s okay, Bengy,’ Katie almost whispered.

The expression on his face twisted from irritation to fury. ‘It is _not_ okay!’

‘That’s enough,’ Arthur said. ‘Wait outside.’

‘I am not –’

Arthur took him by the elbow and marched him over to the far door. Since Bengy was a good six inches taller than Arthur and had at least fifty pounds on him, this was something of a surprise to the younger man.

‘Look me in the eyes,’ Arthur said in the exact same cheerfully friendly tone he always used with students. ‘You’re going to get therapy for your anger issues. The next time you think about striking Katie or anyone else, you’re going to vomit. Do you understand?’

Bengy blinked slowly. ‘Yes.’

‘Now wait outside. Try to think about being a better person.’ He waited until the door was closed before he walked back to Katie. She kept glancing past him towards the door.

‘It’s okay, he’s just waiting,’ Arthur said.

‘He’s just under a lot of stress,’ she said. ‘I should go and…’

‘He’s going to kill you,’ Arthur said, not changing his tone. ‘Maybe tomorrow, maybe in a week, maybe in five years. Because he’s not going to stop. No matter how carefully you monitor your behaviour. No matter if he cuts you off from all your friends and estranges you from your family.’ He raised his eyebrows. ‘Oh, he’s already doing that?’

Katie folded her arms. ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘I know he hit you in the eye oh… two days ago? In the morning,’ Arthur said, ignoring her startled reaction. ‘I’ve been teaching for more than twenty years. I’ve seen this hundreds of times before. I know how it starts, I know how it progresses, and I know how it ends.’ He smiled at her. ‘I know how it _could_ end if, instead of going out into the corridor, you go through the fire exit. What do you think?’

***

Arthur was strolling along, enjoying a milkshake, when he knew that someone was following him. That didn’t happen a lot. He’d been mugged once, many years ago, and he really wasn’t relishing the possibility of it happening again. He glanced around, aware that there were quite a few people on the sidewalk. The sensation of being followed was still insistent. Perhaps his shadow was waiting for him to turn onto a more secluded street.

This was annoying and it was making it difficult for him to enjoy his milkshake. He sucked noisily at the straw and suddenly crossed the street with the full confidence of someone with nothing to worry about short of a stake or bright, direct sunlight.

He glanced back over his shoulder and saw a small woman and a taller man hovering in agitation on the edge of the sidewalk. Arthur shook the remains of his milkshake and briefly considered throwing it at them.

It was tempting but it really wasn’t his style. Besides, they looked less like muggers and more like police officers. Or soldiers.

Arthur slipped down the small street down the side of the department store, circled around, and then cut through the bus station. If they were cops, then they didn’t know who he was. Sadly, he had been forced to interact with law enforcement rather a lot after the unfortunate deaths at the college. He considered himself quite familiar now with the procedures under which they commonly operated. They might approach him at home, or they might approach him at work. What they didn’t do was randomly follow him down the street. At least, he didn’t think so. It happened in the movies and on TV, but Arthur wasn’t a drug dealer or a kidnapper. He wasn’t worth that kind of effort.

Right?

Arthur headed for a bar. He usually had a lot of luck in bars. It was rare for him to struggle to find someone who wouldn’t lend him… succour for the night.

***

Urso didn’t so much snore as make a sort of “putt-putt” sound as he slept. He had been a pleasant enough companion with whom to spend the night. He had turned out to be rather more well endowed with back hair then Arthur preferred, but as he always said, by the time you find these things out it was too late to really worry about it.

Arthur got dressed quietly and left a brief note on the battered kitchen table. It wasn’t particularly that he had any problem with the other man, but, well, he was hungry. It was definitely better for him to take himself away from any kind of the less fun kind of temptation.

Arthur had never considered feeding from a human. He found that he had a much more visceral reaction to the idea after his change. As a human being it was surprisingly easy to consider it as a sensual act that blurred the line between food and sexuality. There were certainly _lots_ of books, TV, and movies that played up that idea.

However, from the other point of view, as it were, that of the possible predator rather than prey, he recoiled from the idea. He _liked_ people. He liked flirting with people, and he liked sleeping with people. Feeding on one felt like making out with a beef burger.

It wasn’t that the smell of their blood was unappetising. He had a lot of female students and on any given day it was almost a certainty that at least one of them was scented delicately with their own blood. However, he _never_ responded to the smell of human blood and he had no intention of doing so. Treating people like food seemed very much the sort of slippery slope that ended up with stakes being waved around and dead young ladies strewn about the place.

No, thank you.

Arthur meandered towards home with the blithe confidence of a man with little natural alarm about other people and the heightened hearing of a vampire. There were a few people around, mostly making their own walks of shame. Although in fairness he wasn’t a fan of the phrase. From his perspective as a psychologist, he knew that shame was damaging. From a _personal_ perspective he had always found it remarkably unhelpful. Besides, why should anyone be ashamed of walking home after passing some time with a person of their choosing? Prudery was simply another form of denial, with all the problems that attended that. Although repression did often tend to lead to all sorts of fun kinks. Arthur was generally on the “meat and potatoes” side of things, but he was always happy to explore all kinds of other flavours if that was the meal that his partner was craving.

Except his own pain. He could _just about_ inflict pain on others, if he worked himself up to it, but he definitely couldn’t take it. He didn’t even like injections. Not that he had to worry about those much anymore.

He was going to have to find a way to bring some sort of snack out with him in future. He was getting really quite peckish. He quickened his pace a little bit. He’d be home soon, and he had some steak tartar just waiting. That would _just_ hit the spot.

A van was following him. Arthur groaned softly. This was really quite unfair. All he was trying to do was go home, have some supper, and go to bed.

Another van pulled in front of him. Arthur turned down an alleyway. It would have been so helpful if he could have turned into a bat. He couldn’t, because Wayne had told him that wasn’t something that anyone could do. Conservation of mass. You can’t squish an entire human being into one bat. Not even if you made it one of those really big bats with the heads like sad horses. Not even several really big bats, because the energy released when you split all the cells would evaporate the entire town.

There were times, when Arthur thought that physics were unnecessarily focussed on making his life more difficult.

So were the people following him. He was forced to hop a fence at the end of the alleyway. He landed a little clumsily and had to stagger the rest of the way home.

He wasn’t stupid. He knew that there was certainly going to be someone waiting for him there. However, he also knew that if he went around the back of Mrs Dinkly’s fence, pulled back the panel on his own fence, climbed into his workshop through the window, and pulled up the hidden trapdoor, that there was a tunnel all the way to his cellar.

Arthur brushed himself off and neatened his hair. The cellar was one of the reasons that he moved here. It was a large room and had once been a cold store. He kept his food down here. Not the blood, that had to be kept in the refrigerator, but the black puddings, blood sausages, and steak tartar could be kept down here in special cases on blocks of dry ice. The dry ice evaporated of course, but very slowly.

Arthur frowned. He could hear the hum of the small fridge in which he had left his supper to slowly thaw, but he could also hear something else very faintly. He expected someone to be upstairs lurking in wait, but this sounded closer. Closer and yet far fainter then he would have expected.

He took the tartar out of the fridge. Still a little cold but he was in no position to get too delicate about that. He couldn’t risk going upstairs to warm it and he couldn’t bear the idea of waiting even longer while his stomach growled.

It tasted wonderful, nonetheless. He was quite aware it was likely the fact that he was truly hungry that was putting such a fine point on his appetite. He didn’t mind.

He put down the plate and licked his fingers clean. He looked at the plate. It was hardly hygienic to leave it there in that condition and he wasn’t going to risk taking it upstairs to wash it. Convinced by this logic, Arthur licked the plate clean. He was good with his tongue. He’d had compliments.

As he lowered the plate, he noticed a tiny puff of air rise from behind one of the boxes. That made no sense. The boxes didn’t leak from the bottom and the dry ice evaporated very gently not in puffs.

Arthur put down the plate and walked around the box. Oh dear.

A vampire in a confined space with slowly evaporating dry ice has no need to worry about carbon dioxide building up. Unfortunately, the person on the floor was clearly not a vampire.

She was barely breathing, and her heartbeat was faint. There were two options: throw her out of the door and hope someone found her or call whoever was upstairs and tell them what had happened. There were several drawbacks to the second, not least of which being that anyone waiting upstairs was unlikely to be too ready to listen to the explanation of precisely _why_ a vampire was leaning over an unconscious woman…

The third option, of simply letting her die, didn’t occur to Arthur and probably wouldn’t have occurred to him even with significantly more time to consider the issue.

Arthur listened at the door for a moment before unbarring it and opening it a crack. He could hear distant movement of someone upstairs but nothing terribly close. Well, best to get it over with. He pulled the woman out by the arms and lay her neatly on the floor. Then he took out his notepad, wrote a few lines, and put the note on her chest. Then he crept back to the door and banged on it loudly before slamming it shut.

Arthur didn’t have a great deal of faith in the bar on the basement door. It seemed to be an original feature of the house, which made him worry that its heaviness was misrepresenting its strength.

He could have run for the tunnel and possibly been out of the workshop before it occurred to someone to run out into the garden. However, there were two problems with that: 1) he might not make it in time and 2) he might make it and then have to keep running and hiding for _days_. Arthur was not built for running and didn’t have the personality for hiding.

He heard running feet that slowed as they approached the unconscious woman.

‘Is she dead?’

‘No, do you see a bite?’

Arthur rapped on the door with his knuckles. ‘She hasn’t been bitten,’ he said, raising his voice slightly. ‘Except possibly by a rat I suppose. When you take her to the hospital you should probably have her check for that.’

There was a long pause. He supposed that was understandable.

‘Sorry,’ a man’s voice said. ‘Who are you?’

‘You first,’ Arthur said. ‘If you could tell me why I shouldn’t call the police that would be great.’

There was some muffled muttering.

Arthur rolled his eyes. ‘Or an ambulance at least. Carbon dioxide poisoning can be quite serious.’

‘You poisoned her?’ another voice asked, sounding confused.

‘No, the carbon dioxide did that.’ Arthur felt that he was being rather more patient than they really deserved.

‘Mr Levine, would you open the door?’ It was another voice. A man who sounded older but whose voice was smooth and calm.

‘I don’t think so,’ Arthur said. ‘And it’s doctor. I worked terribly hard for years to earn it, so I’d really rather prefer it if you used it.’

‘I apologise, Doctor Levine,’ he said. ‘A couple of my colleagues are going to take Paula to the hospital now.’

‘Feel free for the rest of you to go with her,’ Arthur suggested.

‘Dr Levine, you clearly have some entryway into the house via the basement,’ he said mildly. ‘You could have left through it. You could have already called the police. You did neither. I think that you’d like to hear what we have to say.’

Arthur scowled. ‘I would _like_ you to go to but I’m willing to talk to you.’

‘Then that’ll have to do.’

***

Arthur had been raised in the kind of household where life mostly happened in the kitchen. Even though he had never been particularly interested in cookery, at least not cookery that he was performing, he had continued to think much the same way. Kitchens were warm and cosy and inviting in a way that he never felt that living rooms were.

He could see that this choice of venue was confusing his… visitors. He supposed that to a certain type of person it was hard to imagine why he even _had_ a kitchen.

There were three of them, although they mentioned two others who had taken the woman to the hospital. The one in charge, the one that Arthur had mostly spoken to, was a tall, broad, black man, with handsome heavy features, and a shaved head. He introduced himself as Nyx, which _clearly,_ he’d made up because he thought it sounded cool. If Arthur _had_ to sit in his kitchen talking to some sort of paramilitary types, then at least he was very much enjoying the view. And the sound. The deep, velvety voice was more impressive without a door in the way.

The other two were a skinny, tall Latinx man, Tlaloc, and a smaller, wide-eyed Korean woman, Ungnyeo. They muttered to each other more than they spoke to Arthur.

‘Have you heard anything of your colleague at the hospital?’ Arthur asked politely. He sat down near the doorway. If it came to it, he could probably run away and be out of the front door before they caught up with him. He had the home ground advantage if nothing else.

‘She’s being treated,’ Nyx said.

‘Why is your basement full of poison gas?’ Tlaloc asked.

‘None of your business,’ Arthur said. ‘Look, I’d love to chat, but I have to be at work in a few hours and I’ve had hardly any sleep.’

‘You’re a vampire,’ Ungnyeo said mildly. ‘Why are you sleeping during the night?’

‘Because I work during the day,’ Arthur said. ‘And all of my favourite things and people tend to work on the usual concept of being awake during the day and asleep at night.’

‘Favourite people,’ Nyx mused. ‘Such as Mathilde Talbot.’

Arthur scratched his forehead. ‘What about her?’

‘She told us about you,’ Nyx said. ‘She was surprised.’

Arthur shrugged. ‘I’m not sure why. She’s the one who wanted to be tied to the –’

‘Not about that,’ Nyx said smoothly.

Ungnyeo sniggered.

‘She said you don’t feed from humans. That you have no interest in harming them.’

Arthur shrugged. ‘If you don’t let me go to bed soon, I might feel the urge to get a little bit testy.’

Nyx smiled slightly as he leaned forward. ‘You _chose_ to be turned, Dr Levine. You weren’t attacked. It wasn’t an accident. You knew precisely what would happen if a vampire drank your blood. You made the choice to arrange events so that your blood was available in such a way as you were unlikely to be harmed.’

‘Well, I messed up the timing and the dose a little,’ Arthur admitted. ‘I didn’t expect to be quite so woozy when she came by to pick it up. I was lucky that she was a nice girl who didn’t attack me there and then.’

‘A nice girl,’ Tlaloc murmured.

‘Why choose to be a vampire if you don’t want to hurt anyone?’ Nyx asked. ‘It must be difficult for you to feel the hunger and not indulge yourself.’

Arthur sighed. ‘Look, Nyx, I’ve put up with rather a lot from you people and to be honest I wouldn’t have done if you weren’t all so attractive to look at. But enough is enough. You can tell me what you want and then you can leave. I certainly have no interest in telling you my life story.’

Nyx leaned back in the chair. ‘We fight the rising tide of evil, Dr Levine, and we think that you could help us. Join us on our mission to destroy the darkness and bring America back into the light.’

Arthur looked from one to the other. Then he started laughing. ‘That is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard, and I’ve listened to Wayne talking about Elizabeth I.’

***

Arthur napped in his office, leaning back in his chair, hands folded over his belly. This wasn’t an unusual event for members of the faculty, even the ones with less reason and excuse that Arthur had. He didn’t dream when he slept anymore or, if he did, he no longer remembered his dreams. The possible absence didn’t seem to have a negative effect on his mental health. One of these days he was going to get around to writing a paper on the psychology of… ooh how would be word it. Differently vital? Aberrant pathologies? That was too vague. No-longer technically human peoples? That sounded too much like anthropology paper. He dated an anthropologist once. A lovely boy but rather too clinical in bed.

Arthur opened one eye when he heard his office door opened. He sat up and pretended that he was fully alert.

‘Asleep, huh?’ Mathilde asked, leaning in the doorway.

‘What an outrageous suggestion,’ he said, clutching his hand to his heart. ‘If it wasn’t true, I would be mortally offended.’

‘Can you _be_ mortally offended?’ Mathilde asked, walking into the room. She looked around with mild interest and he remembered that the last time she’d been there, they had left almost immediately.

‘I’m an academic,’ Arthur said. ‘You would be amazed at the level to which I can be offended.’ He tilted his head. ‘What brings you back to town? I promise I haven’t been involved in any other massacres.’

She sat on the desk opposite him and swung her legs on either side of his. ‘Just passing through and thought I’d make sure that you were behaving yourself.’

‘Moi?’ Arthur asked sweetly. ‘I never behave but in the nicest possible way.’

They both turned as the door was thrown open and Katie blundered through. She pulled up short when she saw Mathilde on the desk.

‘Oh. Uh…’

Arthur stood up, easily picking up Mathilde and putting her to the side of the desk.

‘How can I help?’

‘Wow, you’re _really_ strong,’ Katie murmured.

Arthur half-heartedly flexed his arms. ‘I try to stay in shape.’

‘I’m not that heavy,’ Mathilde said with a snort.

Arthur shot her a look. ‘Do you need to speak in private, Katie? Is Barney still causing you problems?’

‘Bengy,’ she corrected automatically. ‘He lost his scholarship. Did you hear?’

‘Gosh,’ Arthur said, wide-eyed. ‘How did that happen?’

‘I don’t know! It was weird.’ She ran her fingers through her hair. There were fading bruises around her neck. ‘But I actually came to ask about our projects for next Thursday. Shall I come back when you have some time?’

Arthur checked his phone. ‘Four is good for me.’

‘Great,’ Katie said.

‘I hope that you aren’t suffering the loss of Bertie too much,’ Arthur said.

‘Bengy,’ she said. ‘It’s probably best that he went home. He’s really ill or something. He threw up four times yesterday.’

‘Four times,’ Arthur echoed. ‘Goodness.’

‘Once in my hair!’ she shuddered. ‘Okay, I’ll see you at four.’

They watched her leave. Mathilde pushed the door shut. ‘What did you do?’

Arthur looked innocent which merely made him look like he was up to something. ‘I have no idea what you mean.’

‘Damn, Arthur, I vouched for you to the big bad vampire killers and you’re running around poisoning students!’

He pursed his lips. ‘I did no such thing.’

She cocked her head. ‘Just wrecked his scholarship?’

‘Had a conversation that might have been relevant,’ he admitted. ‘Or five.’

She flicked his bow tie with her finger. ‘And the throwing up?’

‘Psychosomatic I assume,’ he said. ‘I can’t actually hypnotise anyone and he did seem remarkably stupid.’ He leaned against the desk. ‘Do those idiots really try to kill vampires?’

‘Nigel told me one of them nearly killed herself in your cold store,’ she said. ‘They might not win any awards, but they get the job done.’

‘Oh, _Nigel_ ,’ Arthur said.

‘Are you jealous?’ she asked. ‘Because I know they said they lost you temporarily when you went home with some bear.’

‘Never jealous,’ Arthur said. ‘Merely querying your taste. I’m not sure that it reflects well on me.’

‘It definitely doesn’t reflect well on me,’ she said. She looked at her watch. ‘Does your door lock?’

‘Oh yes,’ Arthur said. ‘I made very sure of it.’

The End.


End file.
